9. Strange laws regarding the use of the automobile abound in the United States
As with other purported strange laws, many claimed to be directed at the automobile are myths and urban legends. One such is an often repeated assertion that driving a black car in the city of Denver, Colorado, is against an archaic law, though no evidence of the law ever existing has been found. The city of Youngstown, Ohio, did make it illegal to run out of gas within the downtown district, subject to a fine of up to $100 if caught in violation, guilty of a minor misdemeanor. Hilton Head in South Carolina has a law which prohibits storing trash in an automobile, enacted as part of a rat control initiative. North Dakota banned parking meters after a farmer was ticketed and started a campaign to have meters removed. He was successful in getting them banned.
For reasons which pass all understanding, Alabama enacted a law which bans driving while blindfolded. The widely disseminated myth that Massachusetts has a law specifically addressing the transportation of a gorilla in the back seat is false. Massachusetts has a law addressing the transportation of animals in the back of vehicles, and a humorous writer substituted the word gorilla for animals (gorillas of course being animals) in a magazine article, which was repeated by others. An earlier Massachusetts law addressed the transportation of “dangerous wild animals” but it did not mention gorillas either. Nonetheless, other Massachusetts statutes would pertain which makes transporting a gorilla in the back seat illegal in the Commonwealth.
